Emma Parry-Thorpe freely admits she "puts a lot of pressure” on herself, but when 95% of your business comes from personal recommendations, you can be fairly certain you're doing plenty of things right.

It is this kind of commitment to her business and clients that helped the Designer Travel agent to an impressive double at last week's Travel Industry Awards where she scooped Home-based Agent of the Year, and later, UK and Ireland Agent of the Year.

Parry-Thorpe, who lives in the Lake District, tells TTG she often works until 11pm to provide high quality service to her clients, "spinning all the plates”, as she puts it, which also includes caring responsibilities for family members alongside her business.

Building from scratch

This resilience has stood her in good stead. Never afraid of a challenge, she started her homeworking journey with Travel Counsellors back in 2008 with zero clients – days before the country spiralled into its starkest economic downturn since the Second World War, the so-called "great recession".

"I had to build up my clients from scratch as I hadn’t been working in retail for 11 years,” Parry-Thorpe recalls. Her venture into homeworking also came as she returned from maternity leave having previously worked in a sales development role for agency chain Co-op Travelcare.

"Since then, everything has been built from word of mouth, not social media," she notes. "That’s unusual these days as social media has become so much more prevalent in the past 17 years."

Parry-Thorpe reveals her repeat business rate currently stands at an impressive 76%. So what’s the secret of her success – and why do her clients keep coming back to her?

(Credit: Emma Parry-Thorpe)

She explains she still has clients from “all periods" of her life, including friends from primary and secondary school, as well as bookings from members of her extended family.

"I go and see people by appointment as some are not completely internet savvy,” she explains, moments after getting home from one such appointment. “My best client is based in Bolton – he asked if I would go and see him in person, so I drove there 10 years ago and he’s still booking with me.”

Parry-Thorpe subscribes to the “if ain't broke, don't fix it” philosophy when it comes to her marketing strategy, which includes sending out business cards to clients so they can refer her on to family and friends.

"I’m very proactive, and it works,” she says. “There is also a Designer Travel ad in the back of the parish magazine – that only cost £45 and has brought in £100,000 worth of business.”

With all that said, Parry-Thorpe is by no means a social media sceptic; she operates Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages to drum up more potential clients.

'Coming home'

After 15 years with Travel Counsellors, Parry-Thorpe made the switch in 2023 to luxury homeworking specialist Designer Travel, which is run by her former Travelcare colleagues Amanda Matthews and Karen Pocock.

"It was like coming home – Karen used to be my boss at Travelcare,” she reveals. “There were also lots of other people from my region at Travelcare – YTS, branch managers and consultants. It’s like a reunion.

"I’ve not looked back since joining Designer Travel. I was able to keep all my clients, and have gained more. I always put a lot of pressure on myself with my background in marketing and operations.

(Credit: Emma Parry-Thorpe)

"I think my clients like me being proactive as people are so time-poor. I also know what they're looking for – things like specific seats on flights with extra legroom or special meal requests. You can’t beat that knowledge. I’m never going to be replaced by AI as my clients like the human connection.”

As for what the future holds, Parry-Thorpe has no plans to slow down and wants to keep growing her business by offering the personal service that keeps her clients coming back time and again.

The only difference now is that she will be doing it all with two well-deserved Travel Industry Awards trophies taking pride of place in her garden office.